Union Government to Table Land Acquisition Bill in Lower House of the Parliament Today

Government is all set to table the controversial Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement (Amendment) Bill in lower house of the parliament today. Sources indicate that Union government is prepared to partially concede to the opposition demand of restricting the definition of private entity for acquiring land. Opposition parties are pressing for restricting the term of 'private entity' and replace it with ‘private enterprise’ along with other demands. Parliamentary sources said that eight hours have been allocated for discussing land acquisition bill. M Venkaiah Naidu, Birender Singh, and Arun Jaitley are believed to discuss the matter with opposition leaders in Lok Sabha.

09-Mar-2015Politics

Prime Minister's Statement on International Women's Day Occasion

Indian Prime Minister, in a statement on the occasion of International Women's Day, said that his government is undertaking multifarious measures to stop harassment, abuse, and violence against women. While saying that crimes against women make "our heads hang in shame", Narendra Modi said that his government is in the process of setting up 'One-Stop-Centres' that will help women in times of distress. These centres are going to provide psychological counselling, legal advice, and assistance to women who have faced abuse and violence. NaMo said that 'Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao' Yojana, Sukanya Samruddhi Yojana, Pradhan Mantri Jeevan Bima Yojana, Pradhan Mantri Suraksha Bima Yojana, and Atal Pension Yojana will help women and girl children.

09-Mar-2015Business

Jaitley to Address RBI Board Member Meeting on March 2

Arun Jaitley, Union Finance Minister, is all set to brief board members of RBI on March 22 on the proposed steps announced in the 2015-16 budget for containing fiscal deficit and boost GDP growth. Sources say that the Finance Minister may laud the apex bank’s move of curtailing repo rate by 0.25 per cent, bringing it from seven and a half to seven per cent, on March 4. Finance Minister addressing RBI board members after placing budget is a custom. However, it is also significant because the bi-monthly monetary policy for 2015-16 is going to be announced on April 7.

Newly constituted Jammu and Kashmir government is believed to have prepared a detailed factual report briefing Union Government about the controversial release of separatist leader of J&K, Masarat Alam. Sources say that the report points out unavailability of legal options for the state government in detaining the separatist leader. Senior police officers have expressed concern over Alam’s release as he was the mastermind behind two major stone pelting agitations that took hundreds of lives. Nowshera Ravinder Raina of BJP said that PDP never discussed the issue with the saffron party and they are going to veto the move.

09-Mar-2015Politics

CPIM Takes Dig at Mamata-Modi Meeting

With CPIM organising a 2.25 lakh gathering (per Police report) at Brigade Parade ground in Kolkata yesterday, marking start of its West Bengal party conference, the party leaders took a dig at Mamata Banerjee on meeting PM Narendra Modi and called it ‘ghar wapsi’, as Mamata was part of the first NDA government. CPIM MP Mohammad Salim referred to the meeting as possible alliance of TMC with BJP. WB CM told media that the meeting became necessary as Finance Commission didn’t address their concern regarding large accumulating debt and its waiver by the Union Government.

09-Mar-2015Business

Sensex and Nifty Witness Bloodbath Due to Profit Booking

Indian bourses today witnessed bloodbath during morning trade. At 11.30am IST, NSE Nifty fell by 130 points to 8,808 and BSE Sensex shed 406 points to reach 29,051 points. While 937 stocks gained, 1,433 stocks were trading in the red. Analysts remain bullish about the Indian market inspite of the bloodbath because they believe it is nothing but profit-booking by the investors, following budget proposals and repo rate cut by RBI. Bank Nifty, at 12.36 pm IST, was down by 408.05 points (a drop of 2.07 per cent).

09-Mar-2015Business

News Corporation Acquires VCCircle Network at Undisclosed Amount

With Rupert Murdoch-led News Corporation continuing its focus and continued expansion of its presence in the Indian market, the company has announced its recent acquisition of VCCircle Network, tech media startup. A report published in Tech Crunch says that after VCCircle’s acquisition, News Corp has three business entities in India. However, the deal amount is still undisclosed. It is learnt that acquisition of the VCCircle Network constitutes VCCircle Training, VCCEdge, Techcircle.in, and VCCircle.com. Robert Thomson, CEO of News Corp, has said that this investment is the sign of their continued faith and the positive expectation from Indian market.

09-Mar-2015Others

Indian IT Professional Killed in Australia

Indian IT consultant, Prabha Arun Kumar, has been stabbed to death by unknown assailants in Australia while she was returning from office at 9.30pm, just 300 meters away from where she lived in Sydney. Prabha took a shortcut through Parramatta Park when she was attacked by miscreants. Reports claim that at the time of attack Prabha was talking over phone with her husband Arun Kumar Govindaraju, staying with their 9 year old daughter in Bengaluru, and her last words were “He stabbed me, Darling”. Sushma Swaraj tweeted that she is in constant touch with Indian Consulate in Sydney.

09-Mar-2015Others

Vinod Mehta Passes Away at 73

Vinod Mehta, one of the renowned editor, columnist, and commentator, died yesterday after succumbing to multi-organ failure. He was suffering from lung infection and was going through treatment at AIIMs in New Delhi. At the time of death he was 73 years old and was survived by his wife. Mehta started his career with Debonair, and later founded ‘Outlook’ magazine, from where he retired as Editorial Chairman. Vinod Mehta, known for bold journalism, also authored books like ‘Lucknow Boy’ and 'Editor Unplugged'. Politicians from entire political spectrum including Sonia Gandhi, L K Advani, and Narendra Modi paid respect to Mehta.

09-Mar-2015Others

Arrests Done on Nagaland Mob Justice

More than 18 arrests were made yesterday after a mob lynched a rape accused Syed Sarif Uddin Khan, hailing from Assam, dragging him out of Dimapur Central Jail in Nagaland. In the ghastly incident, which took place last Thursday, a mob paraded him naked, beat him up, dragged for 7 kms, and then hung his body. Reports say that one of the reasons of the angry outrage is the misinformation that Khan was an illegal immigrant. Jamal Khan, brother of the slain rape accused, alleged that many people who participated in the killing were roaming free.

09-Mar-2015Science and Technology

Xiaomi India to Launch Redmi 2 on March 12

Xiaomi India has launched a teaser on their official website claiming to launch a new smartphone on March 12. Though nothing specific has been said about the product in the teaser, analysts believe Xiaomi is all set to launch Redmi 2 coming Thursday. A Facebook post of Xiaomi India says that a consumer can learn more about the product if he/she can solve a word puzzle contest. Redmi 2 runs on Android 4.4 KitKat and is powered by Cortex-A53 Qualcomm Snapdragon 410 processor (64-bit) clocked at 1.2GHz.

09-Mar-2015Sports

Saina Nehwal Loses in the Finals of All England Championship

India's ace shuttler Saina Nehwal, who raced to the finals of All England Badminton Championship, lost to Carolina Marin of Spain during women’s singles final. Though she won the first set 21-16 and started the second game with a much required lead, she lost the match to the woman spaniard by 16-21, 21-14, 21-7. The final match of the prestigious $500,000 championship was over in one hour and two minutes. With this unexpected loss Saina Nehwal missed out to become the first woman of India to win the prestigious event.